As Orin, Falk, and Kazuya gathered their gear, the morning mist clung to the ground like a thick shroud. The air was heavy, saturated with the scent of damp earth.
As they moved, the canopy overhead grew so dense that the rising sun was reduced to thin needles of light that barely pierced the gloom. With every mile, the atmosphere shifted. The normal sounds of the forest—the chirping of insects and the rustle of small rodents—began to fade, replaced by an oppressive silence.
"Stay close," Falk whispered, his hand never leaving the hilt of his sword. "The deeper we go, the more dangerous the beasts get."
Kazuya watched the way Falk moved. Low to the ground, eyes constantly scanning the shadows. He adjusted the weight of his own iron blade. His mind was a hive of activity, cataloging Falk's movements while simultaneously monitoring his own internal state.
I am weak, he reminded himself. Without my Foci, I'm as powerless as everyone else. I cannot afford a single mistake.
...
The attack came without warning. A sudden, violent rustle in the high ferns was the only preamble before a massive weight slammed into them.
"Ugh—"
The force was staggering. Kazuya and Falk were sent reeling as a chitinous limb, thick as a tree trunk and covered in serrated spikes, crashed against their defensive postures. Falk, utilizing years of lived experience, buried his blade into the root-choked soil to kill his momentum. He hissed as the vibration traveled up his arms, but he held his ground.
Kazuya was not so fortunate. Though he had managed to interpose his sword between himself and the blow, the raw physics of the impact were undeniable. His iron blade was nearly wrenched from his grip, and he was sent tumbling backward. He rolled through the mud for several meters, his vision a blur of brown and green, before finally skidding to a halt.
He scrambled to his feet, his breath coming in jagged gasps. He looked up to see Falk already sprinting back toward the beast.
The creature was a horror: a horse-sized mantis with a body made of dense plates that shimmered with an oily and metallic sheen. Its eyes were massive, multifaceted orbs of cold violet, and its front scythes were dripping with a translucent venom.
It reared back and struck down at Falk with a speed that defied its size. The attack missed by an inch, pulverized the soil, and left a crater that sent a cloud of dust into the air.
Kazuya's first instinct before getting up was to check for injuries. He ran a hand over his torso. Nothing. Good.
If he had been gashed, the sight of his skin knitting together in seconds would have ended his charade. His fingers closed around the mud-slicked hilt of his sword.
Clank!
Kazuya took advantage of the mantis's focus on Falk. He lunged forward, swinging his blade in an arc toward the creature's midsection. The vibration of the strike traveled through his bones, nearly numbing his hands. When he pulled back, his heart sank. His blade had left nothing more than a superficial scratch on the beast's armor.
Its body is too tough, Kazuya realized.
The mantis pivoted, its massive head twitching. It sensed Kazuya's presence and swept a limb in a wide arc. Kazuya didn't try to block, he threw himself into a frantic retreat.
He knew the risk, if he blocked and the force broke his arm, he would heal too quickly. He had to play the part of a fragile human, even if it meant looking like a coward. He spent the next several minutes in a harrowing dance of dodges, his lungs burning as he stayed just out of reach of the creature's jagged scythes.
Falk was a whirlwind of steel, clashing against the mantis's armor again and again, trying to find a gap. He was clearly the more experienced fighter, but even his skill was being ground down by the beast's durability.
Just as the exhaustion began to settle into Kazuya's limbs, Orin's voice cut through the clearing. He had been watching from the safety of a massive root, his eyes narrowed behind his glasses.
"Its joints! Attack the segments between the plates! They can't armor the hinges!"
It was the opening they needed. Trusting the healer's analytical eye, Falk and Kazuya synchronized their movements.
Slash! Slash!
They dove low, their blades finding the soft tissue at the mantis's front leg joints. A pungent fluid erupted from the wounds, spraying Kazuya's face. The mantis let out a high-pitched screech that felt like a needle being driven into Kazuya's eardrums.
Driven by agony, the beast grew frantic. It threw a barrage of attacks, its limbs flailing wildly, but without the stability of its joints, the power was gone. Kazuya and Falk became butchers, mangling every hinge and segment in sight until the creature was nothing more than a crippled, twitching heap in the dirt.
As the mantis drew its final breath, Falk leaned on his sword, his face slick with sweat. He managed a weary smile. "What a relief you were here, Kazuya. If I'd been alone... I don't think I would've walked away from that one."
Falk was stronger, yes, but he was a rationalist. He fought because Kazuya was there to divide the creature's attention. Without a second blade, he would have fled.
Kazuya simply nodded, wiping the green ichor from his brow, his mind already moving past the kill.
...
Following the map, they pushed on for another three hours. The forest seemed to grow more aggressive, but the duo had found their rhythm. Falk and Kazuya started to read each other's movements, fighting better as a pair.
Then, they heard it.
Swish. Swish.
"That's the sound of water!" Falk's eyes lit up.
They broke into a jog, pushing through a final wall of ferns until the forest opened into a breathtaking clearing.
In the center lay a lake, reflecting the midday sun. In the middle of the lake was a three-meter-wide hole. It looked like a drain in a sink, with the lake's water pouring down into the darkness in a perpetual waterfall.
"Finally," Orin whispered, his voice trembling with a mix of fear and excitement. "The heart of the conflict site."
Orin didn't wait, he waded into the lake, the water reaching his waist, his eyes fixed on the abyss.
Falk sighed, his distaste for getting wet written all over his face, but he followed. Kazuya entered last, his expression flat.
They reached the edge of the hole and looked down. The walls were lined with crystalline formations that cast a haunting light into the depths. Falk insisted on going first, scaling the damp rocks.
"Come down! It's safe!" Falk's voice echoed up from below.
Kazuya and Orin descended, their fingers clutching the slippery ledges. At the bottom, they found themselves in a long and dark tunnel. They walked in a tight formation, their only light coming from the crystals that dotted the walls.
The tunnel eventually opened into a massive, spherical clearing. It was as if a giant hand had scooped out a perfect orb of rock from the earth. There were no crystals here. It was a tomb of shadows.
High above, clinging to the ceiling by thick strands of silk, a horror had been sleeping. It was a humanoid beast with skin the color of a bruised plum, its body a masterpiece of corded and muscular limbs. Its face was entirely hidden behind a bloated spider.
The beast's hand twitched. It reached for a weapon stuck to the ceiling, a jagged blade with a hilt made of what looked like calcified bone.
Orin's face fell as he scanned the empty space. "There's nothing here. Sigh, what a pity. I guess we can only go back—"
BAM!
The ceiling shattered as the beast released its grip. It slammed into the center of the clearing with the force of a falling star, creating a crater that sent stone shards flying like shrapnel. The shockwave knocked Orin backward, sending him sprawling.
Falk and Kazuya shielded their eyes from the grit and wind. When the dust settled, their blood ran cold.
The beast stood over four meters tall. Its muscular frame was etched with blue lightning sparks that danced across its skin. The spider on its face twitched its legs in a mimicry of a nervous system. It raised the jagged blade.
"Master Orin!" Falk screamed, scrambling toward the fallen healer.
Fwoosh!
The beast moved through the air like a bolt of lightning. In a heartbeat, it was standing directly in front of Kazuya.
Bam!
Kazuya's reflexes saved him for a single second. He threw his sword up in a frantic block. But the impact was powerful. He felt the iron of his blade groan under the pressure. The force sent a shock through his arms and into his chest before launching him.
He hit the stone wall with a heavy thud, his spine screaming in pain.
"Cough, cough..." Kazuya slumped to the floor, his lungs struggling to find air. The world was spinning.
It's too fast.
He forced himself to his feet, using his sword as a cane. He looked toward the beast just as the blue lightning flashed again.
Crack!
The creature appeared before him once more, its jagged blade whistling through the air in a diagonal slash. Kazuya managed to twist his body, the blade missing his neck by a hair's breadth and pulverizing the stone wall behind him.
"We need to leave! Now!" Kazuya roared.
Falk had managed to get Orin to his feet. "Master Orin, can you walk?"
Orin, his glasses cracked and his eyes wide with terror, nodded frantically. "Yeah... yeah!"
"Then run!" Falk urged, pushing the healer toward the tunnel. They began to flee, but as Kazuya turned to follow, he realized that the beast was not interested in them. Its spider-face was turned toward him.
Why me? Kazuya's mind screamed. Why is it only hunting me?
The beast's movements were a blur of blue sparks. Kazuya was surviving on pure instinct, dodging strikes that would have ended a lesser man in a second. But the "window" was closing. Each time the beast flashed, the attack landed a fraction of a second sooner. Kazuya's legs felt like lead. His breathing was a ragged sound in the silence of the cave.
His movements turned sluggish.
The beast flashed beside him, the blue lightning illuminating the predatory intent in its posture. Kazuya looked up to see the jagged blade descending.
In that final moment, time seemed to slow down.
Is this it? he thought. After everything... I die in a hole?
"What a—"
Splat!
The steel sheared through Kazuya's waist with a sound like a heavy axe hitting a wet log. The force was so immense that his upper body was launched into the air, spinning in a slow-motion arc.
As his torso soared, his abdominal wall gave way. His slick intestines unspooled in mid-air, trailing behind his upper body like tangled ribbons. They hit the floor with a series of wet sounds.
Kazuya's upper body slammed into the ground meters away from his legs. Blood erupted, a violent fountain of deep crimson that soaked the earth in seconds. His spine had been snapped like a dry twig, the white and jagged marrow jutting out from the meat of his lower back like a spike.
As the life fled his eyes, his bladder and bowels released, the warm, yellow urine and dark waste mixing with the cooling pool of blood. The stench that filled the air was unbearable, a heavy mix of metallic iron, raw bile, and the acidic sting of rot.
Kazuya's fingers clawed once at the ground, a mindless reflex, before his body went limp.